


Now or Never

by vanishingbyler



Category: IT (2017)
Genre: Alive Georgie Denbrough, Anorexia, Bullying, Depression, Eating Disorders, Food Restriction, M/M, Triggers, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-05
Updated: 2018-01-05
Packaged: 2019-02-28 16:59:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13275876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanishingbyler/pseuds/vanishingbyler
Summary: 1988 was the summer of control.





	Now or Never

**Author's Note:**

> This is based off a request I got in like November l o l
> 
> Read the tags bc this deals with stuff like eating disorders and depression and bullying so,,, yeah. spicy stuff. if you've dealt with the issues mentioned, especially eating disorders which are the central focus of this fic, maybe avoid this one
> 
> If all goes to plan I'll be posting every Friday from now on so like,,, here's this I guess

Bill Denbrough was never in control. He was arguably a leader, and often a babysitter, but that’s not the same as control. Leadership is about care, supporting people towards goals. He was never the kind of person to bark orders and demand people act a certain way, which was his idea of control. Control is a harsh word, a word that implies powerful. He wasn’t powerful, even before the events of summer 1988. 1988 was the summer of control.

 

It started out innocently enough, with a breakfast or two skipped as he hurried to meet the other Losers at the arcade, or the quarry. He became aware that his life was messy and he craved order, so he started to plan more. On Mondays, he woke up at 8 and got ready to be at Stan’s for 9. Same on Tuesday, and on Wednesday he got a lie in until 10, at which point he’d make brunch and meet Richie and Eddie at the diner, where he had a valid reason not to grab a burger. Thursday, he ate apple slices with Georgie before taking him to under-10s soccer practice, cycled around alone for two hours, before coming back to collect Georgie at 12. Fridays, he didn’t have to eat much through the day because he stayed over at Stan’s on weekends and the Uris’s always had a family dinner. Saturday, he allowed himself to eat when he felt hungry, and then on Sunday he was busy with church, followed by Sunday school, until 3 in the afternoon. His mom never bothered to cook anything substantial on a Sunday, so he felt like Saturday was balanced out. 

 

He didn’t feel like there was anything wrong or weird about this routine. It was just control. Control felt good. 

 

He’d always been weak willed. A form of satisfaction came with ignoring his stomach’s grumbling. If he could defy his own body’s cries for help, he could easily start to defy other people. He often thought back to the time Bowers’ gang duct taped him to a wheely chair and scooted him down the school hall straight into the path of Mrs Shirley, the harshest math teacher in Derry. It came about because Hockstetter said sit, and he sat. If he’d refused, it would probably still have happened, and they’d most likely have projected him down the staircase as punishment for disobeying them, but at least he wouldn’t have had to feel so guilty for giving in to their demand without hesitation. 

 

It was a little difficult at first, as his rumbling stomach turned to sharp hunger pangs, but he became used to it. His tolerance for starvation increased a little every day. He felt like he was in control of something for the first time ever. 

 

As summer nights got longer and drifted into fall, he had a more consistent plan. Every day he’d skip breakfast,  eat a sufficient lunch, and stay out until 8 o’clock with his friends so by the time he got home his dinner was cold and he had an excuse not to eat. After a couple weeks of this, his parents starting cooking for three instead of four. All Bill felt was pride. Pride that he’d achieved something meaningful, that people were starting to take notice of his efforts for order. 

 

\---

 

It got even easier when school started up. By getting out of bed late and  walking Georgie to school, there was never time for him to sit down at the breakfast table. He, Eddie, Stan, and Richie already had plans to avoid the school cafeteria and the wrath of bullies, so he was free to pack his own lunches. He could obsessively calorie count, he could go for healthy options, and he could wolf it down before the Losers had time to question his ever decreasing portion sizes. He busied himself with a different extra curricular every night- Art Club, Creative Writing Club, tennis, math catchup, and Additional ASL. They finished everyday at 4:30, and he’d go on to the library until 6, then meet his friends at the arcade. 

 

Unsurprisingly, Stan was the first to notice. Bill saw it coming from a long way off, that the boy with OCD who took notice of every change and every altered routine in minute detail would be the first to spot Bill’s quest for control. 

 

It came in the form of an awkward conversation in hushed whispers at the library. 

 

Stan offered a bag of cookies that had been stowed in his backpack. “Want one?”

“No thanks.” he answered quickly, though his stomach gave a telltale wistful groan. 

“Your stomach says otherwise.” Stan said, giving him a knowing look. 

“I have a s-st-stomachache, it’s fine. I ate after t-t-tennis with the g-guys.”

“What did you have?”

“Andy’s D-Diner.”

“Oh really?”

“Yeah.”

“Because Andy’s is closed today, the owners are in Massachusetts on family business. It’s not been open since Thursday.”

Bill cursed under his breath. “What’s it m-matter?”

“It matters because your lunch today was half a cucumber sandwich and some carrot sticks.”

“That’s b-b-b-bullshit!”

“Is it? Because I’ve been watching the last couple weeks, the most you have is a bag of chips with your sandwich and Fruit Snax.”

Bill’s heart started to race. “Why are you w-watching m-me eat? Doesn’t that s-strike you as  _ w-w-weird _ , St-Stanley?”

“It strikes me as weird that the kid who was challenging Richie goddamn Tozier to a pizza eating contest six months ago now can’t stand to look at a sleeve of cookies.”

“You’re exaggerating the s-situation.”

“No I’m not! I care about your health, Billy, and you’re endangering it. The body needs food.”

“My body gets f-food, Stanley.”

“Not enough. Look, if you’re worried about your weight you don’t have to be, and there’s stuff you can do other than-“

“Other than w-w-what, Stanley? Some shit you’ve im-imagined ab-b-bout me s-starving myself? I’m not worried ab-b-bout my weight, I have no r-reason to be, I kn-know that. Everything’s under c-control.”

“I just wanna help you.”

“Well stop w-wanting. I’m not some p-pity p-project for you to act as some, some s-saviour. If you wanna h-help somebody, help R-Richie. He’s got a whole lot of  _ r-real  _ problems for you to t-t-tackle.”

 

With that, he left the library. For a second there, he’d almost considered eating the damn cookie just to shut Stan up, but that would mean Bill no longer had the upper hand. He’d no longer be in control. 

 

\---

 

Things were uncomfortable with Stanley after that. Bill pretended not to notice the concerned glances, or how the snacks people brought to share always got shoved just a little closer to him. 

 

It didn’t help, as well, that puberty struck Bill in the fall of ‘88. Through a combination of the restricted food intake, and the rapid increase in height, Bill started to look as if you could snap him in half with a little effort. His dad expressed concern for a couple days, but eventually settled for the easy option of agreeing with Mrs. Denbrough that getting so tall so quickly, it was to be expected that he’d look skinnier. The same thing happened to Stan a month or two later, and when the two of them looked pretty equal in build, Bill had to hold himself back from shooting a smug glance. There  _ wasn’t  _ anything wrong with him, he was just growing. 

 

It’s pretty easy to convince yourself of that when everyone around you looks the same. 

 

\---

 

Christmas was the first time he threw up. He didn’t make himself do it. If it had been deliberate, he would finally have been convinced that he had a problem. But it wasn’t, and he didn’t. To this day, he’s not sure if the vomiting was a psychosomatic response to being made to eat  against his will, or if he’d been eating so little for the six months leading up that his stomach couldn’t handle so much food.

 

Georgie watched on with concern as he heaved into the toilet, asking if he was sick, and Bill didn’t even know how to explain to a five year old the systems that he’d put in place this year. A kid that young, whose life revolves around how much candy you get on Halloween, or how many cookies you can sneak from the jar before your parents notice, would never understand why anyone would reduce themselves to a meal a day as a way of feeling some semblance of order in a messy, confusing life. He didn’t feel physically sick after the food stopped ejecting itself from his body, but he was still drained. Georgie picked up on it, and changed their plans of ice skating on the frozen-over canal, in favour of asking Bill to help him set up his new train set. Bill was grateful for his little brother’s maturity, but he still felt overwhelmingly guilty.

 

He just wished guilt would stop manifesting itself as restricting his diet further. He knew Stan would notice, and pretty soon the others would too, but he couldn’t help it. He felt so much like ruining other people’s plans meant he wasn’t in control that he had to compensate.

 

\---

 

It was February when the shit finally hit the fan. After 9 months of limited food intake, his body had at last given up. He fell dizzily down the stairs at school, crash landing at the bottom like an empty sack of bones. His head felt fuzzy, like someone had wrapped cotton wool around his senses. He heard a pattering of feet as Stan, Eddie, and Richie rushed down the stairs to his side. He could just about make out voices worriedly calling his name, but everything was so muffled he was unsure who it was speaking. Black spots danced across his faded vision, and the last thing he remembered thinking was  _ “When did everything get so bad? How did I lose control of so much?”. _

 

He came to a little while later, with the school nurse hovering over him, and Stan sitting over to the side wringing his hands normally. He saw a ham sandwich and a bottle of orange juice on the table next to him and groaned. He knew time was up- he couldn’t keep denying meals.

 

“Ah, Bill, how are you feeling?”   
“D-diz-dizzy.”   
“That’s expected, you took a pretty nasty fall. You’ve got a few bumps and bruises but I don’t think it’s anything too serious. Do you want me to call your parents to pick you up?”   
“N-no, I feel f-fine. Can I just g-go to c-class?”   
“Not just yet, sweetie. Your friend said you’ve not been eating lunches?”   
Bill sighed. “No, I’ve had a f-few… p-problems, controlling w-what I eat. I-I’m trying to work on it-it.”   
“That’s okay, but I’m afraid I gotta make you eat now.”   
“Shit.”

 

Stan shot him a concerned glanced and quirked his eyebrows. They’d developed a skill for silently communicating with each other over the years. This roughly translated to  _ Can I sit beside you?  _ Bill nodded slightly and Stan slunk over to where Bill was laying, and they both sat up next to each other. Bill shuffled the slightest bit closer.

 

“You don’t have to eat much, but I’m worried. We let this get too far.  _ I  _ let this get too far.”   
“It’s not your f-fault.”   
“It is. I noticed months ago, and I didn’t pursue it after you said it was nothing. I knew you were lying, and I should have done something. Now come on, could you have a little?” He passed over the plate and Bill let out a deep sigh.

 

One bite. Then two, then three. He realised a little way through that he was  _ ravenous _ . He’d never liked ham before, but right now it tasted like the greatest thing in the world. He got through the whole sandwich in what felt like no time at all and gulped down the orange juice in even less.

 

After finishing he felt numb for five seconds, ten seconds, twenty- and then broke. He felt the weight in his stomach and he felt the nurse staring him down and he felt his hands lose grip on the plate and he felt himself losing control and he just felt  _ so much. _

 

Stanley pulled him into a hug and while he knew there were hands on his back and a head on his shoulder and arms around his waist all he could feel was that fucking sandwich dragging him down. He felt like he was drowning in his own head and  _ fuck  _ he just wanted to be better.

 

\---

 

It got a little better after that. Not immediately, of course. It was difficult for a long time, but once he finally admitted that starvation and control weren’t synonymous, people around him were able to support him. His parents started cooking for him again, healthy food with smaller portions. Georgie, still too young to quite understand, wouldcuddle up on the couchfor hours after dinner so Bill didn’t have the opportunity to retreat to his bedroom and hate himself. 

 

Staying the night at Stan’s on Fridays became a little less structured, the big family dinner taken upstairs to Stan’s bedroom and eaten slowly, just the two of them, with no pressure for Bill to finish his plate. 

 

At school, all the Losers were clued in on how to help; each of them knew to watch what Bill ate, and not let him go to fifth period without a solid meal in his system. 

 

Even Bowers and his gang held back a little. They’d still cuss Bill out in the hallway, calling him a faggot, a flamer, an anorexic freak, but they no longer pushed and shoved and beat him to a pulp. While the words still cut like knives, it became that little bit easier when he knew their filthy hands weren’t all over the body he was so ashamed of.

 

\---

 

Bill’s birthday was in April. It was the first year his mom hadn’t made a rich chocolate cake, and Bill was grateful. He loved his mother’s baking, and the love she gave, but all of them were acutely aware of how he was still in the mindset of seeing birthday cake as slices of guilt, topped with a regretful frosting. He was almost amused the first time he thought of it that way, the pretentiously poetic phrasing seeming ridiculous to him, but then he was reminded how bad it made him felt. 

 

His thirteenth birthday didn’t feel much like a celebration. 

 

As he took a bite of the unfrosted, store bought cupcake that was substituted for his birthday cake, he realised how much his desire for control had hurt the people he loved. 

 

\---

 

By the time summer rolled around, he was in a better place. While he still couldn’t stomach as much as his friends, or even as much as himself just twelve months earlier, he was doing better. 

 

The Losers made new friends over the summer. A chubby kid called Ben with a love for poetry and a heart of gold. Bev, a girl they’d all been aware of since second grade, but had never spoken to long enough to know how smart, fierce, and resilient she was. And Mike, the homeschooled kid from the local farm, whose passion for local history and animal care taught all of them some interesting stuff over the long break from school. 

 

While their three new friends didn’t know the situation, it didn’t take long for them to catch on. They figured Bev, and maybe Ben, had heard whispers around school, but neither of them were fully aware of the story. 

 

They learned not to comment on how skinny Bill was when he took off his shirt to swim, and to avoid bringing unhealthy snacks to the group picnics. Mike taught Bill how to cook a couple of vegan meals, and his carefully handwritten recipes featured stats on calories and fat content, without making a big deal out of them. 

 

The group were close, closer than any friendship group Bill had ever had, and he loved it. It was so much easier to recover when he had people around him where he could  _ feel  _ the care they had for him, even when they didn’t vocalise it. 

 

Over the summer, he built up a resistance to the disordered eating behaviours that had become so entwined with his sense of self. He noticed for the first time midway through July, when the seven of them went to see  _ Batman _ , and he spent the majority of the film resting good head on Stan’s shoulder and stealing his popcorn. He, in fact, probably had more popcorn than Stan, because the younger boy let him. When they got out of the screen, Bill noticed that he’d eaten a human amount of food and didn’t feeel at all bad about it. 

 

That moment made his summer, even more so when Stan joyously squeezes his hand on the walk home as Bill pointed it out. 

 

\---

 

August 31st was Eddie’s birthday, and a few days before they started their freshman year of high school. 

 

The seven of them were milling about Eddie’s back yard in shorts and loose vests, Mrs. K fretting about Eddie’s allergies but mostly making herself scarce. Richie was buzzing off the orange soda he’d necked before coming over, bouncing around like a demented flea. Eddie was annoyed, rolling his eyes and yelling at Richie to calm to fuck down before his mother would eject him from the house. Mike, ever the peacekeeeper, was distracting Eddie with stories of what would have been where his house now stood a hundred years ago, when Derry township first came about. Bev and Ben were lying in some deck chairs on the grass, sunglasses on and lemonade in hand, talking about the world and the future, and general lovey stuff. 

 

Stan made his way over to Bill, passing him a paper plate with a slab of cake on. Bill smiled gratefully and took a bite. It felt good, not to worry about whether eating this was betraying himself. The worst of it was over. 

 

He found himself glancing over at Stanley. The younger boy’s hair was growing a little longer, his curls wailing around his ears and licking at the base of his neck. His kippah sat comfortably on his head, which Bill loved- Stan’s faith had wavered a little over the last year, years of bullying and struggling catching up with him, but he was comfortable with himself and his beliefs once again. Bill realised that they’d both faced some pretty important journeys recently. 

 

Now or never. 

 

He repeated the mantra to himself a couple times as he watched the wind catch Stan’s hair and the sun glint off his eyes. Now or never.  _ Now, or never.  _

 

“Stanley?”

“Yeah?”

“You’ve g-got a lit-little cake on your f-face.”

“I do? Where?” Stan blushed, his delicate fingers feeling around his mouth and cheeks. 

“J-just here.”  _ Now or never _ . Step forward.  _ Now or never.  _ Deep breath.  _ Now or never.  _ Hand on Stan’s shoulder.  _ Now or never.  _

 

Bill kissed Stan. 

 

He tasted sweet, like the lemon cake they were eating. It was a quick kiss. It couldn’t have lasted longer than two or three seconds, but it happened. 

 

And to take note of what his heart wanted felt so much more like control than any of the months of suffering and starvation. 

 

Stan kissed back. 


End file.
